Teasing the Korean

So agriffith, what did you end up finding at Stereo Jack's?

Eddie Harris - Instant Death (Atlantic)

Not sure what your "classical" tastes are, or what classical vinyl shows up where you are, but I've been able to build a decent classical library through second hand vinyl. Classical albums, especially 20th Century works, tend to be well taken care of (or seldom played!) and were routinely tossed out the door when CDs arrived. At a buck a throw, well worth it. Now the SPACE they take up is another issue...

As both a musician and listener, I care about the Magnificent Goldberg's hopes and dreams, because he is such a hip mofo... And since it's Thanksgiving, I'm feeling generous. So I care about ALL of your hopes and dreams, at least until midnight on Sunday!

You're not the only one. Right off the bat I look for some composers I'm into and they weren't even listed. And I'm not that big of a classical expert. The gaping hole that exists right now in the classical digital catalog is the body of work by lesser known 20th Century composers recorded for LP between the 1950s and 70s. There's all this amazing stuff out there that you can only find on vinyl. In some cases, there is only one recording of a particular work.

Jimmy McGriff Twofer on Groove Merchant.

There is a funny story, not sure of the source, but it goes like this: Cecil Taylor is at a party and the host is trying to impress him by spinning the most out vinyl he has in his collection. After a few records, Cecil says, "Hey, got any Smokey Robinson?" Does "Space is the Place" reference Sun Ra's interest in Les Baxter? Supposedly Les's exotica records were a big influence on his concept for the Arkestra.

I'm looking for a set too. Amazing that I must have like 1,000 albums with vibes on them, yet if I call a music store and ask if they have second hand vibes in stock, I'm met with several seconds worth of dead air. I've tried eBay too and it's tough. Not sure where in NY you are, but I would think you could get a decent set in or around the city, being that there's lots of musicians but not enough space in those shoebox apartments to house a vibraphone.

I am one of the sad young men. Say hi to Gary for me, Anita.

That's it.

Yes. Back in the day I'd picked up a number of twofers in the tan with orange type series; and orange/brown with top green banner series. (For all I know, this may have been the same series with a packaging change). Anyway, a number of these twofers were comrpised of 2 unreleased albums. The McCoy Tyner and Stanley Turrentine sets come to mind. Being that each set had 2 albums, but one title, I'm assuming that, say, the McCoy Tyner albums weren't subsequently released on CD as "Cosmos Vo. 1" and "Cosmos Vol. 2." And I know there are a lot of Blue Note experts around here who could answer the question in much less time than it would take me to enter each TRACK title into Google (being that I couldn't guess the CD titles). Hence my original question...

Thanks all (including Chuck).

thanks. next...

I'm just curious how Blue Note has dealt with these in the digital age. I'm assuming they didn't simply copy the (ugly) 70s graphics. Did they make up titles and fresh cover art to make them look as though they were released on vinyl at the time of recording? Or is it haphazard, on a case by case basis?

Can anyone confirm my delusion that Ramsey did a bossa album for Cadet or Argo? I could have sworn I saw this at some point, but recently looking at an inner sleeve of Cadet albums (with one side devoted to Ramsey) I didn't see it. Did I dream this up?

You mean that trio stuff from Cadet hasn't made it to CD? Along with Ahmad Jamal, Ramsey sparked an entire sub-sub-genre of jazz. Every label had its own equivalent of Ramsey (or Ahmad).

Ironically, the extreme sepation between channels became much more the rule than the exception; it was just that producers/engineers soon had many more tracks to utilize and consequently could spread things out to create an illusion of true stereo.

Yes, maybe my use of the word "early" threw people off, sorry. I meant "early" in a more general sense, inasmuch as mono was still the dominant format when these were recorded. I don't like the extreme separation others have mentioned either, which is one of the reasons I seek out mono albums. Either way, the ambient room sounds on the examples I cited sound great to me, at least on my stereo in the room I'm listening.

NOT TRUE!!! He recently got a sex change and married Bev Bevan...

Which releases are you listening to? My (limited) experience has been more in concert with the other posters on this thread: crazy separation with a big old hole in the middle. Please see second-to-last paragraph of first post in this thread...

You must've heard different stereo releases than the ones I have. The ones I'm referreing to exhibit the opposite of the hole in the middle - there's so much bleedover you can't tell what is in what speaker unless you really make a project of it. I prefer this kind of stereo to the type utlilized by other labels, in which there is clear line between what's in the middle vs. what's in either speaker; which to me sounds and feels more contrived. This is simply my opinion; others of course will disagree... Hence, my preference in general for MONO!

Generally speaking, I prefer listening to jazz on LP and in mono. That said, some of the best and most natural sounding jazz stereo recordings I've heard are some of the early ones on Atlantic. Everybody's in the same room (of course), and it doesn't sound like any attempt is made to prevent bleeding from one channel to the other. The end result is a very natural, ambient stereo room sound that enhances the groove rather than distracting from it. You really feel like you're right in the room with these guys. These sessions must have been recorded on 2 track or at the most three. A couple of examples off the top of my head include some of the early Mose Allison Atlantic albums and "Soul Meeting" by Ray Charles and Milt Jackson. Thoughts?

Thanks for all of these suggestions. I have one of the Blue Note books, the West Coast book, and the Flora book. It sounds like at least 3 of the titles mentioned would compliment these well - if I can find them, that is!

How about either Cuban Fire or West Side Story, both arranged by Johnny Richards? I would also recommend his earlier recordings with arrangements by Pete Rugolo.